BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

This appears in the Monday, June 15, 2015 edition of the Business Mirror.

Analyzing JRU’s loss
to San Beda in the Filoil Cup semis

by rick
olivares

The late
rally had tantalized. Given hope. But it ultimately fizzled out. The San Beda
Red Lions looked like they would stroll to an easy win over the Jose Rizal
Heavy Bombers in their match-up in the semifinals of the Filoil Flying V Hanes
Premier Cup.

Up to the early
fourth period, JRU had only one meaningful spurt and that wasn’t spurred by its
regular scorers like Abdel Poutouchi, Paolo Pontejos or Teytey Teodoro. It was
Ghanaian reserve center Abdul Razakwahab who not only swatted two shots (that
was the official tally but he looked to have gotten at least one or two more)
that led to some easy baskets.

Defense. It
is hard to imagine correlate that with these Heavy Bombers. It was their
calling card back when they had players like Marvin Hayes, John Wilson, and
James Sena to name a few. Since then…. well, they went back to their old
bombarding ways. Sniping from the outside with reckless abandon while turning
the ball over just as much.

Last year,
they were good offensively behind scorers Zam Paniamogan, Jaycee Asuncion, and
Michael Mabulac. This year with chemistry still being developed and players
blowing hot and cold, their calling card was their defense. And they had the
8-1 record heading into the semifinals match with San Beda to prove it.

The problem
with playing San Beda is that opponents want to get the jump on them. Gigil is
the word. To show them up. Score on them; taunt them even. But that isn’t the
proper game plan. The idea is to stay focused, just play the game, defend and
when the opportunity arises, score. All that can be distilled into one word –
execution. That’s all there is.

Unfortunately
for the Heavy Bombers, on a day where their head coach Vergel Meneses wasn’t
available (due to personal reasons it was said), their players made plenty of
poor decisions.

The problem
with JRU is they live and die with the play of their corps of guards –
Pontejos, Teytey Teodoro, Gio Lasquety, Dave Sanchez, and Mark dela Virgen. With
Lasquety still out after being knocked to the court two matches ago, the others
kept jacking up shots. The problem is they do not take them within the flow of
the game. They were looking to score points. The old Heavy Bombers lineup of
Cagoco, Hayes, and company liked to pass that ball around. The only one who
would have fit right into this current crop of conscience-less Heavy Bombers
was Wilson who never met a shot that he didn’t like.

With that
mindset, it is hard for them to get teammates into the flow. More on that in a
bit as we look at their forwards.

Forward Marco
Balagtas is dependent on how, when, and where he gets the ball. Counterpart
Jordan dela Paz can play both ends of the court but needs to be more cognizant
that he can do more by slashing to the basket as opposed to taking jumpshots.
The other forwards, Ervin Gorospe and Kim Aurin who both sometimes start are
the same. They are like robots. Aurin has to work on his jumper that is in local
parlance, “masyadong matulis.” He needs to follow through on that shot and give
it some more spiral to go in.

Aurin and
Gorospe started the first and third periods. They both finished with one
assist. Their starting Bedan counterparts – Art dela Cruz and Jaypee Mendoza –
has 11 assists between them. JRU’s starting guards of Teodoro and Sanchez
finished with seven assists; the same as SBC’s Ryusei Koga and Ranbill Tongco.
So the forwards were a huge difference.

The starting
centers JRU’s Poutouchi and SBC’s Pierre Tankoua both canceled each other out
with subpar games. Of the centers who came off the bench, Razakwahab had a
bigger impact on the game for JRU than Ola Adeogun did for SBC and that gave
the Heavy Bombers a little hope.

San Beda
looked like they were going to cruise when they spotted JRU a 16-point lead,
70-54, when Razakwahab inspired another rally. With Teodoro finding the range
and then Pontejos draining two treys (4-9 from that zip code), the lead was cut
to one, 75-74. But two badly executed possessions with shots taken from Jimmy
Alapag range ended any chance of forging overtime or winning the game outright.

Dela Cruz
scored on a crucial putback (in addition to a pair of coast-to-coast layups
that is unpardonable when you think that the defense was set) and an assist to
Adeogun to help put JRU away, 81-77, to enter the finals.

If you look
at the basic defensive stats, San Beda, with subpar games from Tankoua and
Adeogun grabbed 37 rebounds to JRU’s 30. They had six steals to the Heavy
Bombers’ two. JRU came up aces in blocks, 6-1. And here’s the rub – SBC shot
53% to the 41% of JRU. The poor shot selection definitely was a factor.

Why is this
massive? You are playing the five-time NCAA champs who are going for a sixth
consecutive title. It is theirs to lose at this point.

It’s the
pre-season but if the Heavy Bombers want to make serious headway in the
upcoming NCAA tourney then they will have to play consistent and better defense
and to make smarter decisions in their playmaking and shot selection.

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What I do for a living?

I also write regularly for Business Mirror; philstar.com; abs-cbnnews.com, and rappler.com.

I am also currently the media officer for the Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup, the National Basketball Training Center, and the Flying V Davao Thunders.

I do PR consultancy for a variety of clients that I do not want to divulge.

I used to teach journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University hand have given lectures about journalism, new media, marketing, and public relations at the Ateneo, UP Diliman, UST, San Beda, Immaculate Conception Academy, Miriam College, Mindanao State University, FIFA seminars, and a few other schools and organizations.

I used to write for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines Free Press, and Maxim Philippines. I have also contributed to FHM, Men's Health, Tower Sports NBA, Rebound, and a few other sports, interior design, and lifestyle magazines as well. Most recently, I was the editor-in-chief of PBA Life, the Official Lifestyle Magazine of the Philippine Basketball Association as well as Season 40 edition of Hardcourt, the season-in-review.

My blog, Bleachers' Brew, serves as a hub for many of my writings (but not all as there are some that are exclusive).

When I have free time, I listen to my collection of over 5,000 CDs, read, watch DVDs, or walk my dog around the subdivision.